The Occupation of Kochab
by The Curious Kills
Summary: The Dominion War once again enters the lives of civilians as Sano, Nakatsu, Ashiya and Umeda are trapped on Kochab during an enemy attack. Held hostage with the rest of the population, they must survive while at the mercy of the JemHadar. R&R please!
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER ONE**

"Anyone can die anywhere at any given time. People only realize someone's importance when they're gone."

Umeda Hokuto, "Hana Kimi", Episode Thirteen

**New Camden**

**Kochab IV**

**Beta Ursae Minoris System**

"Do you think he'll really show up?"

"Miracles have been known to happen."

"I'm starving! Can't we eat without him?"

Ashiya Mizuki, a pretty young woman in her late teens, swatted her former classmate's elbow in playful reproof. "Nakatsu-kun!" she said with a laugh, "Didn't you eat anything today?"

Nakatsu Shuichi looked at the girl with a helpless expression, his tussled bronze hair making him seem all the more childish and lovable. "I did," he told her honestly, "I had left-over sushi from last night's dinner. I'm still hungry."

Ashiya gave him a look that told him he should have known better. The older man, sitting across from them with a bemused expression, shook his head at the Japanese soccer star.

"How can you expect to beat Andor and Vulcan this year when you can't even get a decent meal? If this keeps up, I'm afraid I'll have to bet against my own planet's champion team." With mock regret, Umeda Hokuto turned his eyes sorrowfully toward Mizuki, who couldn't contain all of her laughter. Nakatsu, annoyed at her snicker and the implication that his team would lose in a game native to their planet, gave a small exclamation of annoyance before taking another pull off his root beer and changing the subject.

The man they were waiting for, Sano Izumi, was a professional athlete as well, known for competing in the Olympic track and field sports. Like all of them, he had studied at Osaka Gakuen in the small Terran archipelago known as Japan. Dr. Umeda, as the school physician, had patched them together a number of times during their youth, and thus had earned himself a place in their hearts as a sort of mentor they could go to when they needed help.

Mizuki especially saw Umeda as a close friend, as he had supported her when, at the emotional, irrational age of sixteen, she had left her home in California, America to join Sano and convince him to resume his beloved high jump. Nakatsu had also helped her, but had only discovered that she was, in fact, female only a few months before everyone else had. It was quite a funny story, and they all had taken a part in it.

Today, since Nakatsu and his team were visiting Kochab to train for the upcoming competition, Mizuki had seized the opportunity to get all of her closest friends together for dinner, to catch up on how everyone else was doing. Sano was already living on Kochab III, only a few minutes' hop by interplanetary shuttle, and Dr. Umeda taught Medicine at the Ursae Minoris University of Culture and Science at New Camden, the same university where Mizuki was working toward a degree in Bioanthropology.

A few minutes later, Sano Izumi, a tall, solemn-faced man with waving dark hair and calm brown eyes entered the café and looked about for the friends he was to be meeting. He easily spotted them and headed toward them with a measured pace.

"Sano-kun!" Mizuki beamed at sighting her first love, "You made it!"

"Of course," the high-jumper responded with a characteristic touch of the blatantly obvious, "It's not that long a trip."

"It certainly took you long enough," Nakatsu pointed out vengefully, "I'm hungry, and they wouldn't let me eat until you got here." He aimed an irritated glance at Mizuki and the doctor.

Umeda smiled innocently at Nakatsu and shrugged before addressing the recent arrival. "Konnichiwa, Sano-kun."*

Sano bowed slightly, and Nakatsu scooted over so the other could sit down. "Konnichiwa, Umeda-san."

A blue-skinned Andorian waitress came toward their table, and the four Japanese people ordered their meals. The café was unlike the other neighboring restaurants in that instead of going to a nearby replicator and receiving a synthesized meal from a computer program, one had to place their request with an organic life form, who would then take their message to a behind-the-scenes kitchen, where your food would be cooked and brought out to you when it was ready. Mizuki liked it, and it had turned out that Umeda enjoyed the same type of place, and being the only two of the bunch who lived locally, they had gotten to choose the rendezvous point.

They had just about finished and were having a very interesting conversation about the Olympic competition and how one judged fairly between two different species of life form when a siren interrupted Umeda in the middle of a sentence. Sano and Nakatsu were surprised; they had never heard of a weather siren, since, unlike most planets, Kochab IV was still being developed. Weather-manipulating satellites could not do much for the planet, which was in a very young state of its evolution. The best the Federation could do was to put in place seismic monitors and hope the weather radar would catch any hurricanes heading toward the cities or settlements.

"It is a bit odd, though," Umeda commented after explaining this to the younger two men, leaning over to look out the large plexiglass window as he said it, "The sky's clear as day."

"Maybe it's an earthquake?" Mizuki suggested, already preparing to slip under the table if such were the case.

"No," Umeda insisted with a slight frown, "The siren's different for an earthquake. It was definitely a hurricane warning."

Around them, a few other customers made curious glances toward the sky, and on the street people paused and headed toward the nearest newsboard in confusion, but most of the crowd merely shrugged and continued what they had been doing beforehand.

It was this state of complacency, a number of officials in Starfleet and MACO would warn in coming days, that would serve as a dangerous weak spot for the United Federation of Planets. Even though they were currently locked into battle with a Gamma-quadrant faction known as the Dominion, the UFP was unused to war, and therefore only those at the front truly understood the horrors and danger that could easily spill into their own backyards.

Today, however, no one thought, "Is it an enemy attack?" or "Could this be the end?" All they thought was that some incompetent in the weather department had accidentally tripped off a senor, and that this siren was simply a false alarm.

With a subtle shake of his head, Umeda resumed what he had been saying before the confusion.

"The trouble with interspecies competition," he went on, "is that there are disadvantages and advantages that make the play unfair unless they cancel each other out. For example, Andorians live in a cold and low-gravity climate, where Tellarites live on a multi-G planet and have the body of… well, of a pig. A game between the two races would have been out of the question before the advent of holographic technology for use in environmental adjustment. Today, you can simply have the Andorians in one chamber, the Tellarites in another, and merely project an illusion of the other team into each habitat."

Nakatsu nodded with understanding. "That's what we had to do when we played against the Elaysians."

Umeda nodded with knowledgable agreement. Elaysians lived on a planet with an incredibly low gravitational pull, and on their own planet were capable of flying like birds. However, when they visited other planets, they had to were external support gear to prevent the foreign gravity from crushing their fragile skeletons. Recently, a Dr. Julian Bashir had discovered a method of treatment to prevent this from occurring without the assistance of extra supports, but the theory remained untested.

"That would make sense," the doctor replied, "Tell me, who won that match?"

Nakatsu started to reply that Earth had won by only a few seconds, but he was cut off when a familiar woman suddenly bounded up to their table with a broad smile on her pretty if middle-aged features.

"O-hisashiburi desu ne, Hokuto?"*

Umeda gave a startled jolt, and stared at Hara Akiha with an expression that resembled that of a cornered rabbit. "You!"

Mizuki beamed, oblivious to Dr. Umeda's discomfort. "Akiha-san, when did you come to Kochab IV?"

"I go wherever there's a chance of good material," the photographer explained cheerfully, giving Umeda an ingratiatingly happy grin, "Sano-kun has always been one of my favorite subjects since his high school days."

"Of course," Umeda muttered, turning toward the window and sulking vigorously, "It's only been two years since I saw you last. I should have known my luck would run out."

Akiha gave him a brief and angry glare before switching back to her offensively sunny disposition that always drove her homosexual ex-husband up the wall. Akiha and Umeda had first encountered each other in college, where they both had gotten extremely drunk and accidentally married. Divorce had been prompt in its coming, as Umeda had no interest in women when he was sober, and especially not Akiha. Nevertheless, Akiha persisted in coming around, and their battles had become a regular factor in each other's lives.

"Umeda's in rare form," Akiha commented dryly, "How is everyone else?"

Everyone else was doing just fine. Akiha, upon discovering that this was a preplanned reunion, whipped out her camera and started snapping pictures. Mizuki, Sano and Nakatsu had been her favorite projects back at Osaka High School, which had been one of the reasons why she kept going back there.

Just as Umeda was about to say something particularly nasty about Akiha and her camera, the siren that had turned on before sounded again, catching them all by surprise, as the sky still hadn't a cloud in it to be seen.

"That's the weather siren, isn't it?" Akiha asked, leaning over the table to glance up at the sky. Mizuki, worried that Umeda was actually going to be sick if this kept up, broke in and answered.

"Yes," she told the photographer, who straightened up again as her question was answered, "It went off earlier too. We don't have any ideas as to why, though."

"Hm," Akiha mused thoughtfully, "If it's happened twice, it can't be a coincidence –"

"I know what the sirens are for," Umeda interjected irritably.

"What?"

"They're trying to warn everyone about you!"

"What!" Akiha demanded, enfuriated. The three collegiates looked from one adult to the other, half-concerned, half-amused glances ricocheting between them. There was a murmuring sound outside, as if a number of aircraft were flying overhead. If any of them had looked outside at this moment, they would have noticed that those who had happened to glance upward were acting very, very nervously.

Suddenly, the ground shook as an explosion rocked New Camden. The plexiglass window cracked and shattered from the force of the blow, and several customers in the café were thrown to the ground from the shock of it. Others leapt to their feet in alarm, others still began to panic as they realized that something previously unimaginable had just happened.

They were under attack!

Nakatsu, Sano and Umeda quickly got to their feet and unconsciously formed a protective triangle around Mizuki. Akiha quickly picked up her camera and hurried toward the other window, almost falling as another explosion rocked the humble café.

"Akiha-san!" Sano called to her in alarm, "What are you doing?"

"This is important!" Akiha shouted over the tumult of noise, "Somebody's got to document this!" A third explosion shook the building, and she shook her head, muttered something under her breath, and ran for the door.

"Are you crazy?" Umeda demanded, following her outside and grabbing her elbow without thinking, "Get back in the building!"

Akiha ignored him, shaking off his arm as though he didn't factor into her perspective. "Joutaro," she shouted, forcing her way forward through the screaming, confused crowds, "I have to get Joutaro!"

"Akiha!" Umeda persisted, trying to catch her, "Stop!"

A fireball of concentrated energy suddenly flew into vision, swallowing the frantic image of Hara Akiha and, for a moment, everything else that was visible as well. A wordless cry escaped Umeda's lips as the force of the blast sent him colliding into the outer wall of the café, and his world went blank for a few moments, the crowd slowing out of his memory, the noise muted and distant.

In the back of his mind, he could recognize Mizuki's screams and Nakatsu's worried shouts. He sensed Sano grabbing his arm and throwing it over his shoulders to support him. Another corner of his mind vaguely noticed the Jem Hadar warships flying overhead in a graceful yet deadly pattern though the air of the young planet.

A word drifted through his head, softly wafting inside his skull until he grabbed hold of it like a cerebral lifeline.

Shellshock. The world was being shot to pieces, and he was in shellshock. Sano, Nakatsu, and Ashiya were in danger, and here he was, the person who was supposed to look after them, the adult, half-dazed. Indignation at his own state of weakness spurred him on, and, like a man drowning, plunged toward the surface of his consciousness.

"What can we do?" Ashiya Mizuki sounded terrified, her voice wavering on the edge of tears.

"We have to find a place where we can hide," Sano pointed out objectively, hurrying as fast as he could with Umeda's arm slung over his neck, "Then we'll see about contacting Starfleet."

Nakatsu was once again amazed by Sano's ability to see clearly through any confusion. Even as Kochab shuddered and broke under enemy fire, Sano Izumi could look at the situation, analyze it like a walking calculator, and work out how best to combat it. It was a small wonder that he was sometimes mistaken for a part-Vulcan.

Grabbing Mizuki's arm, Nakatsu tugged on it, trying to uproot her from where she was standing, staring at a black, charred mass in the middle of the street. "Mizuki," he called to her, "We have to go!"

The young woman blinked back what might have been tears and nodded, accepting Nakatsu's offered hand as she ran with the others toward the city outskirts. Once in the unsettled country, which was never too far away, the four would be less likely to be captured or killed by the Federation's enemies.

A few minutes later, Nakatsu and Mizuki skidded to a halt, surprised when Sano suddenly froze. They looked ahead of them, and with a sinking feeling realized that they were trapped. An organized line of Jem Hadar soldiers were steadily penning them in, along with the rest of New Camden's population. New Camden only had about six thousand residents, and, even though they still outnumbered the Jem Hadar now marching toward them, too many of the civilians were injured, dead, or in various states of shock and couldn't put up much of a fight.

The four Humans were backed into the rest of the crowd. There was no escape. They were now prisoners of the Dominion.

**((AUTHOR'S NOTE: Of course they are all speaking Japanese, but with the universal translators, I was able to put most of the conversations into English, or as they call it, Terran Standard. Here is a glossary of what the translator didn't catch.))**

**Konnichiwa: **Good day

**O-hisashiburi desu ne, Hokuto:** Long time no see, right, Hokuto?


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

"_Why are you being shy?"_

"_I'm not being shy, I got pinned into a corner."_

_Umeda and Akiha, "Hana Kimi", Episode (?)_

All around them there were terrified people. Some were frightened to the point of tears, others trying pointlessly to comfort them, while others, parents and siblings, called out to their lost family members and friends, desperately trying to find each other in the tangled mass. Still more were injured, both outwardly and inwardly. On the outskirts of the crowd, four Humans tried to remain calm and come to terms with the situation.

"Mizuki," Nakatsu spoke up suddenly, "I think he's coming back."

The young woman quickly turned to look at Umeda, whose eyes had opened. Nakatsu offered him a hand as the doctor began to sit up, but Umeda refused any help, determined to rise from the concrete road surface on his own power. He did, refusing to succumb to the slight dizziness and nausea that threatened to grow in his stomach and brain.

He looked at the two of them, blinking as a cloud moved in the sky to release the sun's over-eager rays. "Sano?" he asked curiously. The high-jumper was nowhere about.

"He's gone to speak to some of the others," Mizuki explained, "He was going to try and find another doctor, too, because you weren't waking up."

"How long was I out?"

"Fifteen minutes," Nakatsu estimated, then hesitated with, "I think."

Umeda pressed a hand to his pounding head and cursed. It had probably been a concussion; he seemed to remember slamming into something when that blast…

He winced and shied away from the memory. He didn't want to think about it, he didn't need the extra, added grief right now on top of everything else. What had that woman been thinking anyway, running out into the street like that…

No. He didn't even want to bother placing blame right now. He needed to survive the present first, and start taking care of those under his responsibility. He gave an assessing glance toward each of his former patients, automatically running through all the visual clues he knew that suggested various injuries and ailments. Both Nakatsu and Mizuki seemed fine, and Umeda felt comfortable enough to get annoyed.

"What was Sano thinking?" he demanded irritably, scanning the crowds for the missing boy as he said this, "I need a doctor like… like… well, I don't need one. Which way did he go? We need to stay together."

Mizuki managed a small smile, and Nakatsu pointed in the direction that Sano had headed. "I'll go find him," he offered, acknowledging Umeda's condition even if the man himself refused to, "I'm sure I can – oh, here he comes."

Sure enough, the tall, dark-haired athlete was weaving his way through the hordes of not-quite-panicky civilians, a tall, slender Vulcan in tow. The Vulcan, in appearance a credit to his race, looked to be about 59, the equivalent of what would be middle age for a Human, and was wearing a lab coat over a humbly-colored, nondescript outfit, looking as though the attack had occurred while he had been in the lab.

Spotting Umeda, awake and standing, Sano looked slightly relieved and picked up his pace. However, before he could reach the rest of the group, a shot rang out and startled everyone, eliciting a few screams from the more panicky of the captives. Sano received a rather sharp elbow in his rib cage as a young yet towering Huanni took a step back, and he gasped slightly, biting his lip for a moment as the rest turned to see where the shot had come from.

Apparently, it had originated from a Jem'Hadar disruptor, fired harmlessly into the air to grab the prisoners' attention as their commanding Vorta, a tall, reed-like female with tall, pointed ears and too much mascara stepped on top of a pile of broken concrete to address the crowd.

When all had reasonably settled down, she began to speak.

"Citizens of New Camden," she began, her voice in possession of a taunting, purring gentleness both capable of calming the hordes and inciting a mass execution, "I am Gledrat, Vorta and reperesentative of the almighty Dominion. As you certainly are aware, your city lies in ruins and you are surrounded by troops of Jem'Hadar. You are now, for all intents and purposes, our prisoners."

Even though the fact was as obvious as she had said, the cold statement cause an uncomfortable susurrus of voices, rising and falling between the pause she allowed them, smiling graciously, like a benevolent dictator surveying a celebration in her honor.

Finally she resumed. "You will be organized and put to work immediately, save for those who cannot. As for those who can, I ask that you move to the left of this…" she glanced at the broken streets which contained her quarry, "intersection. Those of you who are too aged or sick, move to the right."

There was a brief moment of confusion, during which nobody moved, which was broken apart by the invasion of Jem'Hadar into the crowd, forcibly separating the masses, their cobblestoned, scaly faces scowling with terrible, threatening intimidation as they shoved a few work-capable Betazoids or Sulamids this way, and nudged an elderly Tellarite or a humanoid with a broken arm in the other direction. The crowd, with a few unlucky exceptions, began to part obligingly like the Red Sea before a very angry Moses.

Umeda had already pushed Mizuki and Nakatsu over to the left-hand side of the road, and reached forward to grab Sano, who was still slightly bent, nursing his aching side. Mizuki noticed this, and began to step forward, and Nakatsu urgently grabbed for her hand without luck.

Without warning, shouts broke out a little ways ahead of where they were, and there was the sound of disrupter shots, and a following, terrible scream. The fear caught like wildfire among the already-nervous captives, and soon cayos had overtaken the scene once again. Lunging forward, Umeda finally caught Sano's wrist and pulled him down to the ground where they could avoid the shots, as Mizuki was pulled away from them by the rushing, fleeing crowd.

"Mizuki!" Nakatsu's shout caught Sano's attention, and both young men tried to run to their friend's aid. Umeda fought to stop them while suppressing his own instinct to do the same, grabbing Nakatsu's ankle while he clung firmly to Sano's sports jacket. They had to stay together, but Umeda could not let them all run the risk of being shot for one person. Mizuki screamed and tried to run against the crowd, but she was caught in the living current and soon was obscured from view.

The screams and shouts suddenly went dead, as though someone had punched the "stop" button on an old-fashioned disc player. As Umeda looked up hesitantly, he saw the Vorta standing among the throng, surrounded by a protective ring of her reptilian soldiers, eying both them and the crowd with a dangerous fury.

"Cease fire!" she ordered again. Umeda had not heard her say it the first time. However, the Jem'Hadar had, and the guilty one looked contritely like a boy caught with his hand in a cookie jar.

An accusing finger rose, aimed toward him, and in a terrible tone, Gledrat decreed, "You are reduced six ranks! As for the rest of you," she turned toward the crowd, her voice hard as a rock, yet containing less fury, "be silent and do what you are told. This would not have happened had you obeyed me the first time."

Then she smiled, sickenly, and her voiced resumed its sugar-sweet purring. "I'm sure that cooperation will come easily in time. When you have been separated as I have ordered, we will begin cataloguing and assigning identification numbers."

Then, with a swish of her out-of-place, silky violet gown, the Vorta exited the crowd, her escort moving with her. Umeda allowed the others to get up, and they both looked about for their missing friend.

"Mizuki, where's Mizuki?" Nakatsu demanded, franticly scanning the crowd. Infuriated by the futility of the situation, the soccer player directed an accusatory glare toward Doctor Umeda. "You! Why did you -? What's happened to Mizuki?"

$#(%&

NOTE TO READERS: I'm sorry if the cliffhanger's crappy. It sounded awesome while it was in my brain! LOL!


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